Melpomene
by the-fraulein
Summary: preRENTfiction. You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of… Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met. COMPLETED.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

Story contains self-plagiarism. Stolen lines from other things I've written. I do that sometimes.

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* * *

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**Melpomene  
**_Prologue_

It had been autumn yesterday. Today the snow was falling silently, desolately floating to the ground in lonely little dots of white. Mimi tried to ignore the irony. She dug her hand into her pocket, wrapping her fingers around the letter she had found in front of her door earlier.

…s_ome days I can't wait to die, because it means I'll have spent my last night face down in my pillow, staining it with makeup I'm too lazy to take off. Crying until my cheeks are stained with black and no amount of scrubbing or foundation will erase it. I need something. I need someone. There's nothing. There's only heroin. And it's scary, you know? It's really, really scary. He doesn't understand. I don't think he's afraid. He will be, when he knows. I hope it will convince him to give it up. Because living like we do isn't living at all…_

A sad little letter from a sad little girl. It was signed with love from April, written to a guy named Mark.

The wind picked up slightly, the snow shifting direction and flying into her face. She squinted and wiped a hand across her eyes, looking away. She pulled her coat tighter and took a separate path to escape the wind.

Mimi closed her eyes, walking blindly in the snow and thought of April. She wanted to sympathize with the girl in the letter but found it difficult. Adolescence and its overwhelmingly trivial troubles seemed far behind her. Her mouth tightened into a straight line and she opened her eyes. But, then again, maybe not so different.

April had a drug addiction. April wanted help and didn't know where to find it. April also wanted to die. But not necessarily the way fate had decided for her. The letter was long, it rambled. April wasn't really sure what she wanted to say, but then again, April was an addict. What did addicts have to say? And if they had something to say, how exactly could they pull together enough conscious brain cells to get it out?

Mark had never gotten his letter. Mimi thought maybe that was the name of the shy boy with glasses that lived in the same building. That maybe April had just been too far gone to know what floor of the building she was on. Possible. She could try to give it to Mark. Maybe. Maybe it was better he didn't know what Mimi knew.

After all, _he_ was his best friend.


	2. Chapter One

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter One_

A man was lying on a park bench a few feet away. Resting, asleep or dead, she wasn't sure. His face was young, with calm features, a strong jaw line and high cheekbones with a generous mouth. He looked tired, wasted and devoid of any real life. Just another addict. Another beautiful byproduct of carefree living. Too free to know any better. Too young to really care.

He opened his eyes after a few moments of her staring to return the pensive gaze Mimi held over him.

"Lost?" He asked, his voice soft and hoarse.

"Hardly." She replied from inside the big coat.

It was a fair exchange, Mimi thought. She did look young. Like a child wandered too far from her mother. True, honestly.

He moved slowly, pulling himself up and leaning heavily against the back of the bench.

"What's your name?" He asked, finally pushing himself off of the bench and standing beside her. His eyes were unfocused, completely bloodshot. He was almost too high to function. Mimi pulled the coat tighter and frowned.

She shrugged and decided to leave the question unanswered. She started to walk again and he joined her, his long, relaxed strides keeping good time with hers.

"What are you doing out here all alone?"

"Why are you sleeping on a park bench?"

He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered her one. She shook her head but he took one for himself and lit it.

"My girlfriend didn't really want me there." He said vaguely. Mimi caught the scent of alcohol. He smelled vile, carrying the stench of vodka. His hand was shaking holding the cigarette, he shoved the other hand in his pocket.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"There's those problems, you know?" He asked thoughtfully. "That kind of stuff."

Mimi nodded. "Of course." He was completely out of it. She was still feeling her last little hit. They were quite the pair.

"I'm just thinking." She said. "About this letter I got. From a girl saying she wants to die."

"Why would you care?"

She smiled. "I don't know. Sometimes it's just the times. Sometimes what feels right is wrong within the hour. Sometimes you regret what you craved."

He laughed under his breath. "I love this stupid suicide craze." He said. "These little girls who think their lives are over don't know the worst of it."

"Which is?"

"Their lives haven't even begun." He told her, inhaling deeply on his cigarette and coughing a moment later.

* * *


	3. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…

Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

**Melpomene**

_Chapter Two_

"Why does your girlfriend not want you around, really?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

Mimi said nothing and waited. He shook his head.

"Why have a girlfriend at all?" She finally asked him.

He blew out a heavy stream of smoke and coughed again. "Nowhere else to live." He shrugged again. "And it's not like I really enjoy this. Not anymore."

"No one makes you do it." Mimi told him, watching him.

"It's all empty. Anyway you look at it. So you might as well, you know?"

"Really?"

He frowned. "When it's gone, you know, like… When you're not on it. All you remember is the rush. You forget shit. You forget puking your fucking guts out in the bathroom at 3 am. And you forget overused veins that bleed when you're desperate. You forget everyone hating you. You forget shit like that, you know? It's everything, it's… Nothing? I don't, everything, maybe."

He trailed off completely, Mimi noticed his train of thought had led to nowhere and he had gotten off long before then.

"So it's an escape all over again." He mumbled, tossing his cigarette and lighting a new one.

Mimi pulled her hand out of her pocket and slipped it into his hand not holding the cigarette.

"What are you living for then?"

He shook his head. "I'm not living for anything. I'm just living." He looked down at her. "What do you think you're living for?"

Mimi gave him a small smile. The world was starting to look real again. Her mood had completely crashed, and normalcy set in. Life off smack wasn't really life at all. She lost the words she was searching for and could only smile and shake her head. The walked through the park in silence for a few minutes until he decided to talk again.

"You know all those people out there? On the street? No real anything to them. No… substance. Nothing to the way they move through life. They just sort of you know, exist."

"Like you." She said softly. _And me._

He sort of smiled and looked away.


	4. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Three_

"Come home with me tonight. I don't want you to feel alone." She said quietly.

He laughed at her and gently pulled his hand away.

"I have people to meet."

"We should have fallen in love." Mimi said, the air around them too quiet, muffling her words in the soft absorbent texture of the falling snow.

"Some other time." He said absently. Mimi had a general idea he wasn't really focused on her anymore.

"What's your name?" She asked him, attempting to lure him back in.

"What?" He asked, abruptly. Before she could repeat the question he coughed again, the smoke from the cigarette swirling in the air around his features. He stared at her shamelessly for a long moment, his expression full of desire, acceptance and a strange fiber of bravado.

"I'd stop living if I had a day of life back." He said. "But it doesn't matter, you know? Cause people aren't built on strengths, they're built on their weaknesses."

Mimi smiled. "Don't become a statistic." _Like me._

He smiled, his eyes downcast as he tossed the cigarette aside. He shivered, but somehow Mimi knew it wasn't from the cold.

"I've got… stuff, now. You know?" He said. "I'm going that… I think I'll go that way."

She watched him start in one direction, change his mind and go another instead. He looked completely confused.

"Maybe." He said. "Maybe not."

And then he was on his way down the path out of the park. Mimi pulled her coat tighter, hiding inside and pressing her chin against the coarse fabric. It was getting late.

It was also getting really hard to concentrate.


	5. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the Cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Four_

Mimi's apartment was cold. She tossed the opened letter on the table next to her bed. The letter was addressed to Mark, and most of it contained a plea for him to reason with an unnamed man.

_Talk to him, Mark. He's your best friend. He'll listen to you. He's known you forever. You know. You know how it is. Please. Scared. He's not scared. He should be. _

The letter could be impossible to read. There were sentences that consisted of one or two words. April had to have been high when she wrote it. Poor little April. Mimi actually felt bad for her.

_I'm 19, Mark. I'm 19. I'm too young. It's so soon and I'm scared. I want to cry and I cry and then I want to die. You know. _

Mimi would turn 19 tomorrow. She sniffed in disdain. That was such a joke on her, being 19. How much older she felt…

There were heavy footsteps on the staircase. She flinched inadvertently at the unexpected volume of the noise and looked up at the ceiling. She really should give this letter to Mark. It was sort of important. But it was also time for work, and she really needed a hit before she could possibly deal with a club full of drunk men.

* * *

Mimi sighed; staggering slightly as she pulled her boots up and started toward the door of her apartment. She passed the staircase where a sad looking boy with glasses sat. He was holding a camera that he fixed on her as soon as she opened the door. She gave him a vacant smile and a barely audible greeting, more intent upon experiencing her high and getting into her distant state of mind she needed to perform. Mark's camera followed her until she was out of sight down the stairs.

Mimi had forgotten the letter completely by the end of the night.

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	6. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Five_

There were footsteps pounding on the stairs. Heavy, frantic thuds that roused Mimi from a restless sleep. She glared up at the ceiling. A man was crying. Pacing. More crying.

Something had happened. But it wasn't really important to her, honestly. Mimi was tired. It was currently 5:10 in the morning and she'd only gotten home an hour ago. All that really was important was that someone was making it difficult for her to sleep.

A man was yelling now, his steps heavy and then a loud thud. Maybe he'd fallen. She laughed under her breath and rolled over. Would serve him right. She pressed her head deep into the pillow and placed her hand over the ear facing the ceiling and tried to close her eyes.

"Mark, you don't understand!" Someone bellowed, loud enough that she could make out every word, her eyes snapping open in surprise.

"She's dead, Mark!"

* * *

It was the third night in a row that she had lost sleep due to the other idiot upstairs. He threw things and yelled at Mark and cried almost nonstop. It was sad in a way, but also fucking irritating.

Her last hit was wearing off and she was at that horrible stage right after calm and right before disaster. Stuck somewhere between feeling fine and homicide, Mimi dragged herself out of bed and pulled on her robe. As she walked toward the door, she heard the footsteps move and soon they were pounding down the stairs. She heard another heavy thud and a muffled groan.

Opening her door, a blond man who was quite dirty and sick in appearance sat about a third of the way down the stairs, his head in his hands. She watched him for a moment, her first urge to rip into him about the noise somewhat ceasing beneath pity.

Shaking he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter and lit one for himself. If he saw her, he didn't acknowledge it at all. He looked familiar, but she wasn't quite sure why.

He coughed suddenly and shook with the effort it took. A complete mess, he was. Mark came thudding clumsily down the stairs.

"Hey, c'mon man. Get up. Come back." He said to the dirty guy. He gave Mimi an embarrassed half smile.

"Sorry. He's not having a good time, you know?"

She looked at Mark first and then back at the other man. Her eyes focused on the sore knots of bruised flesh on his arms and his shaking hands. She looked at the way Mark's arm went around his shoulders. Brotherly, comforting. _She's dead, Mark!_

Oh. She knew.

She smiled back, embarrassed as well, and absently stepped back inside and closed the door.

_Because living like we do isn't living at all._

Mimi really needed a good hit.


	7. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Six_

In the months that followed, the small bond of pity and remorse that Mimi held with Mark and Roger faded into another blurry memory of the clientele in the club. The faces of men seemed to somehow all blend together after awhile. She became increasingly aware of her own solitude, and of her growing dependency on the stash she kept in the drawer of the table next to her bed.

AIDS was something she had heard of. Back when she was even younger, maybe even before she left home, it was mentioned in passing. A frightening sort of plague that attacked the careless and the young. AIDS was not something Mimi would have ever given much thought before it was dropped heavily in her lap. She had started to finally become aware of what her diagnosis meant for her and what she should be doing with her time. Somehow, the idea that drugs weren't entirely the best option slipped from her judgement.

On her walk home from the club on an early night when there hadn't quite been enough money for a good hit, Mimi passed a sadly encouraging cardboard sign.

**Life Support  
**A group for people coping with LIFE.

The writing was blurred below the second line from the rain the night before.

"What's it for?" She found herself unconsciously asking out loud.

A thin man brushed past her on his way out. "AIDS." He grumbled, continuing on his way down the street. Saddened and annoyed, he appeared.

Mimi stared at the sign and the dim, hazy glow of a light at the bottom of the stairs. She moved toward them and started down, even though the latest meeting was ending. The people inside all looked relatively normal, with the exception of one girl who seemed to be on the very edge of her life. She was headed out, holding the hand of a healthy looking boy.

The girl smiled at her and touched her arm for a moment as they passed.

"No day but today, honey." She told Mimi, her voice barely above a deadened whisper.

Mimi shivered and pulled away. These people were all dying. To chance spending her time among them would be to give in to a constant reminder that she couldn't keep denying her fate. They sat there in their little metal folding chairs with their hopeful expressions. Some with faintly knotted arms from drug usage, others holding hands and accepting their coupled death sentence. Some were alone, melancholy in a corner, lingering as the others left together. She would have to accept eventually that she was nothing else but one of a million in a plagued generation of misfortune.

No day but today.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

**Chapter Six is new too. **

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Seven_

Benny was all in all, not a bad guy. He owned her building. He was a regular at the club. He always seemed to have plenty of money, and he was friendly. He always had enough time to buy her a drink or two before she left work. He liked to talk about his old friends. There was the filmmaker, the artist,the rock star,the performance artist, and the philosopher. They all each seemed to have a separate sentimental value to him, but he talked of them in the past tense. They were either all dead, or dead to him. Either way, they'd left him some fond memories.

"Well," Benny said, laughter in his voice. He grinned. "So this one time, right? April is painting and Roger is lying around playing his guitar. The usual, you know?" He smiled. "Mark and Maureen come in and Maureen is at her best, bothering Mark about something or other like always. Sometimes I wish they had stayed together just because watching them fight was so entertaining."

Mimi smiled politely and tossed back the rest of her drink. It was later than usual and she was tired. Benny continued on in his story about what really just played out to be any normal day in the life of a group of friends. She listened without expressing her boredom because she sensed the loss in his jubilant memories. These were only memories and from the way he was telling them, that made a typical day seem like a specified moment in time, they were impossible to recreate. So she let him have his time. And she let him accompany her back to her apartment. At least for a few nights.

* * *

Around a month later, on an unsatisfying Christmas Eve, Mimi's hands were shaking as she fumbled through her drawer for matches. Annoyed and frustrated she slammed the drawer shut and sat on the floor, pulling her knees against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. While pouting, she caught sight of a corner of paper beneath the little table and she slowly reached and tugged it out into the open.

_To Mark_, the letter opened.

Mimi stared at it blankly, remembering a name, a face, but not recalling which name went to which face. The incident seemed so distant and unmemorable. She crumpled the paper and tossed it aside and slowly stood up. She still needed matches. Picking up the candle she had dropped earlier she frowned and made another lap around the tiny apartment. She didn't have any, but there had to be someone around that did. It was Christmas Eve after all.

* * *

One more chapter, I'll get to it when I can. 


	9. Chapter Eight

**Disclaimer:** Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.

**Summary:** You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…  
Not quite the cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.

* * *

**Melpomene  
**_Chapter Eight_

Mimi knocked on the door, shivering slightly from the chill that had followed her into the hallway.

"What'd you forget…" Came a bored voice from the man who opened the door. He stared at her.

_She's dead, Mark!_

"Got a light?"

His eyes were dull, his expression weighed down with age and melancholy. His actions were all one obnoxiously slow movement, as though each one required much effort or thought. _Because living like we do isn't living at all._ Sobriety took all the fun out of life. It also stole the last remnants of a life from a former user.

"She died. Her name was April…" He muttered, looking away.

April wrote the letter to Mark. April had AIDS. April was dead. The rest of the present situation seemed awkward from her distant viewing point.

"They used to tie you up…" He said, nodding now that he could admit where he knew her from. But that didn't seem quite right. He was vaguely familiar. She never remembered a man from the club.

"Why don't you forget that stuff? You look like you're sixteen…"

She took offense, retorting that she was nineteen and old for her age. Heroin put the fun into life and the living into years. Stripping hardened her. Living on her own aged her. AIDS made life real andliving essential.

"I once was born to be bad." He admitted.

She had a brief flash of irrational pity for the man who seemed to have detached himself from a more rational lifestyle.

His eyes were very lovely. Light green. Sad eyes, empty, but recovering. There was something in them now that hadn't quite been there when she'd first come in the room.

"I'm Roger."

Roger had loved April. They'd done drugs and April wanted Mark to help Roger stop. Roger had talked to Mimi in the park so long ago when he'd smoked and shared his bitter philosophy. Not quite the Cat Scratch Club.

"They call me Mimi."

But it was close enough to the truth.

* * *

Notes: Cheers, kids. Thanks for reading and reviewing. I'm trying to work a new chapter thing but I'm coming up short. I'll try to post when I get inspired soon though. Love and stuff. 


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